Journeys in the Light: Untold Stories of Cape Cod
In this newest documentary, Cape Cod's small, vibrant community of People of Color provides a window into the wider story of America itself. Produced by ArtistsAndMusicians.org with John L. Reed, Executive Director of Zion Union Heritage Museum, Journeys in the Light engages the museum's art, artifacts, historical documents, and exuberant team of volunteers to share the untold stories of African Americans, Wampanoag native Americans, Cape Verdeans, and other People of Color living in this fabled region. John Reed's vast knowledge of, and his enthusiasm for, history's untold stories have made him an invaluable asset and delightful collaborator on the project. View the film's trailer here.
A cadre of socially committed local artists and historical researchers are at center stage—Pamela Chatterton-Purdy with her magnificent Icons of the Civil Rights Movement series, long-time Barnstable High School Art Department Director Carl Lopes with his bold and regal works inspired by African masks and shields, Robin Joyce Miller with her history-inspired "collage quilts" that commemorate key periods and milestones in the struggle, and many other creative and socially committed people.
In the space of one hour, the film manages to sketch 400 years of American history—much of it little known and all of it in some way featured in the Zion Union Heritage Museum. The film opens with the arrival of the Mayflower in 1620 and the near decimation of the Wampanoag people. It recounts stories of African Americans who were here at the time of the Revolutionary War and before, and who played major roles in the struggle for freedom and civil rights for all Americans. It tells of the seafaring people of Cape Verde, who began to arrive in the first part of the nineteenth century and whose descendants are the most numerous group of People of Color in the region to this day. And it tells of groups who arrived in the region later, including people from Brazil and the Caribbean. The obstacles they encountered and the accomplishments they made are extraordinary.
In 1989, for the 350th anniversary of Hyannis, MA—Cape Cod's one and only "city"—Dolores DaLuz published her historical notes, creating a key resource for the Zion Union Heritage Museum concerning the time before, during, and just after the Civil Rights Movement. Her writings provided a foundation for the Journeys project, with fascinating stories like that of the Mitchell family who stowed away on the ship of Cape Cod abolitionist Captain Crocker in the mid-nineteenth century and Victoria Bell and her eleven children who were tricked into coming to the Cape nearly a century later as part of a cruel hoax called the "Reverse Freedom Rides." Dolores knew many of these twentieth-century civil rights figures personally, including "Cape Cod's Rosa Parks," Eugenia Fortes.
Icons of the Civil Rights Movement
Our first "Journeys" undertaking was launched in 2011 when we began work on the documentary Icons of the Civil Rights Movement, based on the magnificent art and historical exhibition by this name. Over the prior several years, artist Pamela Chatterton-Purdy had begun to paint portraits of heroes in the long struggle of African Americans for freedom and civil rights, and her endeavor continues to this day. Each Icons portrait sits in a gilded wooden frame and, much like a Byzantine icon, it provides a window into the life, character, and major life events of its subject. In this classic and respectful fashion, Chatterton-Purdy has depicted such towering historical figures as Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln; inspirational figures in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s like Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, and John Lewis; and heroic, lesser-known individuals like Robert Moses and Jonathan Daniels; as well as former President Barack Obama and his family. View the film here.
Rev. David Purdy, a retired Methodist minister, has accompanied his wife Pamela through a lifetime of commitment to social justice—from her days working as an artist for Ebony Magazine, through their adoption and raising of two African American children, and through years of unceasing engagement in matters of race and social justice. David also researched and wrote the historical annotations for Pamela's Icons series.
Our documentary, like the Icons exhibition itself, tells the story of the Civil Rights Movement through its heroes, known and unknown and, in the process, it puts the spotlight on this extraordinary couple and their shared lifetime commitment.